The document discusses how behavioral economics can be used to promote health and wellness. It outlines six behavioral tendencies - inertia, temporal discounting, loss aversion, social norms, choices, and availability - and provides examples of how benefit designs, communications, and programs can leverage these tendencies to influence people's health-related decisions and behaviors in a positive way. For instance, it discusses how using defaults, framing messages around what people will lose rather than gain, highlighting social norms, and simplifying choices can help overcome inertia, loss aversion, and decision paralysis.

1. Putting Behavioral Economics to Work with Health and Wellness Worksite Wellness Council of Massachusetts | November 15, 2011

4. We Use Mental Shortcuts $ ______ $ ______ A cup of coffee and a newspaper together cost $3.50. The coffee costs $1.00 more than the newspaper. How much does the newspaper cost?

5. Do NYC Cab Drivers Maximize Their Outcomes?* * Camerer et al., Labor Supply of New York City Cab Drivers: One Day at a Time. Quarterly Journal of Economics , 1997.

6. Six Behavioral Tendencies That You Can Harness or Overcome

7. Inertia : A Bias for the Status Quo

8. Organ Donation Source: Johnson & Goldstein. Do Defaults Save Lives? Science , November 2003. Effective consent percentage Explicit consent (opt-in) Presumed consent (opt-out) Plan Design: Leveraging Defaults to Overcome Inertia

9. Overcoming Inertia with Ease: On-Site Flu Shots

11. Temporal Discounting : The Tyranny of the Present vs. the Promise of the Future

12. You Might Need to Lose Weight, But Why Do You Want to Start Now?

17. Loss Aversion : Losing Hurts Worse Than Winning Feels Good

18. Framing Messages: Using Loss Aversion to Promote Wellness

19. Framing Messages: Using Loss Aversion to Promote Wellness

21. Framing Messages: Using Loss Aversion to Promote Wellness

22. Plan Design: Using Loss Aversion to Save Money Targeted employees with maintenance medications Prescription home delivery (Large retailer) Two retail courtesy fills allowed (a financial loss) By third fill employees must... Active decision required Switch to home delivery Stay at retail Call PBM to switch Pay drug’s full cost at retail

23. Social Norms : What’s Everyone Else Doing?

24. Social Norms: Smoking Is Addictive, but Quitting Is Contagious* *Christakis & Fowler. The Collective Dynamics of Smoking in a Large Social Network. The New England Journal of Medicine , 2008 . “ What people need to understand is that because our lives are connected, our health is connected.” — Nicholas Christakis, M.D, Ph.D.

25. Using Social Norms: Health & Wellness Events

27. Using Leadership and Champions to Create Social Norms

28. Using Social Norms: On-Site Screenings

30. Choices : Liberation or Paralysis?

33. Availability : Hearing the Wake-Up Call

34. A New Customer Reality for Wellness Messaging? A Possible Focus of Health Engagement Over the Course of One Year Emphasize health engagement the other 50 weeks AE pre-AE post-AE Get flu shot; why it’s particularly important for diabetics Diabetes c. Take an HRQ; special sidebar on diabetes Diabetes d. Diabetes a. Reduce the focus on annual enrollment Diabetes b.

36. A Way to Enhance Behavior Change Efforts educate motivate facilitate Make It Easy Make It Relevant